The team at Lund University who developed the method is convinced that a blood test will improve the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

A blood test opens the possibility of already seeing at the health center if a patient is suffering from the disease.

- We have symptom-relieving drugs for Alzheimer's disease, but many people do not have access to the drugs because they are not properly diagnosed and especially not early in the course of the disease. This is stated by Oskar Hansson, who leads the study and is a professor of neurology at Lund University.

The blood test can be taken at the health center

Today, the diagnosis is often made at specialist clinics with the help of a spinal fluid test or a PET camera examination. What you measure is the accumulation of the protein Tau.

- We have seen in previous studies that if we measure Tau in spinal fluid or with a PET camera, an X-ray technique, it improves diagnostics compared to just looking at the patient's symptoms, but these studies cannot be done at health centers but only at specialized memory clinics. .

Alzheimer's disease occurs with an accumulation of the protein beta-amyloid in the middle parts of the cortex. Photo: SVT

The new study is presented in an article in Nature medicine and is a sensitive method that can detect Tau in blood and which provides as good information as PET-Camera or spinal fluid examination.

- So a blood test seems to be able to replace the spinal fluid tests and can then be used in primary care around the world, says Oskar Hansson.

But it is not about blood tests for screening, that is, for people without symptoms, but only to improve the diagnosis of those who are searching for memory difficulties.

More studies in primary care

Dementia researcher Bengt Winblad, professor emeritus, Karolinska Institutet who read the study thinks it is well-made and interesting.

"Confirmatory studies (...) need to be done and new studies start at primary care level," he writes in a comment to SVT.

And there will be several reports, both national and international, that show similar results shortly, Oskar Hansson comments.

There are also studies in primary care in Lund and Malmö how to use and read the blood samples.

- The study aims to determine how doctors should interpret the answer and what it leads to, he says.

Important for drug development

Oskar Hansson also believes that a blood test will have an impact on the development of new drugs.

- PET camera is expensive and spinal fluid tests are quite cumbersome - with blood tests it is easier to find candidates for drug tests but the test can also help to see if a drug works or not.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common dementia disease and affects about 25,000 Swedes a year. There is no cure and no really effective medicine today.